What’s the Ideal Length for a YouTube Marketing Video? A look into Video Duration vs. Social Sharing

David Waterhouse, the Head of Content for Unruly Media, has just compiled some interesting stats on the average length of the ads in the Top Global Video Ads Chart. It ranks brands’ social videos worldwide based on the amount of times content has been shared on Facebook, Twitter and in the blogosphere.

The data is pretty interesting.

Average Video Length for Top 50 Most Shared Global Video Ads:

Top 10 – 4 minutes 11 seconds (2,513 total seconds – does not include “Kony 2012”)

11-20 – 2 minutes 30 seconds (1,501 total seconds)

21-30 – 3 minutes 5 seconds (1,849 total seconds)

31-40 – 2 minutes 57 seconds (1,770 total seconds)

41-50 – 1 minute 45 seconds (1,049 total seconds)

Top 50 – 2 minutes 54 seconds (8,682 total seconds – does not include “Kony 2012”)

How Long Should a YouTube Marketing Video Be for Shareability?

Now, one of the most frequent questions that I get asked is: How long should a YouTube video be? And I often reply, “Long enough to reach a point.”

But the Unruly data provides an even better answer to the question.

So, I interviewed Waterhouse via email to discover the story behind the story. Here are my questions and his answers:

GJ:If internet marketers and video content producers want to create a video ad that will be shared across the web, but they aren’t sure how long to make it, what would you recommend? Should it be less than one minute? If it is longer than two minutes are web users less likely to share it with their social networks? Is there an optimum length? Does it even matter how long it is?

David Waterhouse | Unruly Media

DW: Well, in the world of social video advertising, size does matter – but maybe not in the way you think. You would imagine that the average web user would rather have a red-hot poker rammed in their left eye than sit through a four-minute-minute ad. After all, these are the days when consumers pick and choose what they watch with a nonchalant flick of their DVR remote. These are the days when a 15-second pre-roll ad can drive even the calmest and most patient individual into a frothy ball of uncontrollable rage.

However, if you look at the length of most popular online video ads of all time, a very different picture emerges. The average length of the Top 10 most shared ads of all time is a 4 minutes and 11 seconds. Yep, just short of five minutes (sort of). Now, I know what you are thinking: it’s the Kony factor that has driven up the time. Stick the charity Invisible Children’s 30-minute video in there and of course the numbers are going to fly up. Kony 2012 was a one-off; a global phenomenon that is not a good yardstick for commercial brands trying to make it big online.

Well, what if I told you that that figure actually does not include Kony. In fact, if you did include it, the length would increase to a mammoth 6 minutes 12 seconds. Indeed, even without Kony, half of the top 10 are more than three minutes long, including Abercrombie & Fitch’s Call Me Maybe spoof, while four are more than four minutes 57 seconds. Two, including the highly successful Gymkhana 4, created by DC Shoes, are more than nine minutes.

In fact, look at the top 50 and a pattern develops: the shorter the ad, the fewer shares it tends to attracts. For example, the average length of the 11th to 20th most shared ads of all time is 2 minutes 30 seconds; videos 41-50 it’s 1 minute 45 seconds. The top 50 average (again not including Kony) is 2 minutes 54 seconds.

GJ: So, what does this mean to internet marketers and video content producers?

More significantly, it shows that people’s attitudes to advertising have changed. Rather than being interrupted by a brand, they want to be engaged by one. It’s a change that more and more advertisers are beginning to embrace. They know the days are long gone when they would just buy some airtime or ad space and blast it out to a supposedly captive audience.

These days, they know that to reach out to their target audiences online they can’t just put their TV ad on YouTube and hope for the best. Instead, they are embracing the opportunity to become content creators – and it is these brands that are reaping the rewards online.

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Greg Jarboe is President and Co-Founder of SEO-PR, an award-winning content marketing agency. He is also the author of "YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day" as well as a contributor to four other books. He is an instructor in the Rutgers Business School Executive Education Mini-MBA program as well as Coursera. In addition to Tubular Insights (fka ReelSEO), he also writes for The SEM Post.